There is no "good hair"

There is NO “good” hair.

I know that a lot of people have grasped the fact that there is no such thing as “bad” hair and that very kinky hair is not bad, and have learned to love it, embrace it, style it, etc.

But it seems like a lot of people here have not quite grasped the concept that there is no such thing as “good” hair either. Some people I know seem to have the notion black women with a looser or curly hair texture walk around in some sort of hair utopia, where all they do is put water on their hair and receive beautiful compliments from everyone, and styling their hair is a vacation, etc. Other times, it seems like people take the “good hair/bad hair” notion and reverse it. Now kinky hair is “good” and loosely curled or curled hair is “bad”. (<_< hmmmmmph. I know she didn’t just post a picture of her hair up here. What is the point of her being up on nappturality anyway?? Her hair ain’t even “nappy”. What was the point of her sharing that story about that person who “insulted” her? She must have some sort of subconscious motive. Mmmmmmph.) Not all do that, but I do feel like a lot of people accuse looser curled nappies of not needing to be here because our problems with our hair are assumed to be relatively few and non-important. When we relay our negative experiences on nappturality, our subconscious motives for sharing them are frequently questioned.

Some facts about looser curled hair that people need to realized:
1. Often, curly hair is STILL not “good” enough. I don’t know about EVERYONE, but I do know that for me and my sister and my cousins, and many curly headed black women I know, our hair was/is still not accepted in its natural state. Rather, Curly hair is assumed to be an easier palette for straight styling. Every time I see my niece and my sister, I watch them fuss and fight and complain with their hair. They use heat and constantly complain complain complain about their hair, because they can’t get it to do what it’s “suppose” to do, whatever that means. They still do not love what naturally comes out of their heads. Consider, also, that lots of factors come into play as to what makes curly hair easy to straighten, such as porosity, coarseness, etc. Whether or not your curls clump easily together or stray off on their own is important to whether curly heads are considered “curly” or “wild”. “Wild” curly hair is considered bad, wrong, even if you are a curly head and often labeled as being difficult to manage. Stylists often assume that a curly head will always be easier to straighten, without taking other factors, such as coarseness, into consideration. My hair was, from early childhood, considered to be “problem hair” because it is wild, and coarse. My niece has a thinner curly hair texture and it straightens easier than my sister’s and mines, but when she straightens it, it’s still not natural. Hair, no matter the texture or grade, tends to fight against long term unnatural styles, either by way of split ends, sore scalp from the perms, or at the very least, being difficult, a headache, taking much time and effort to get “right”. Women of African descent are pretty much the only race of people who tend to collectively wear their hair *long term* in an unnatural state. This is true of many black women even if they are curly headed. I learned to wear my hair naturally curly as a teenager, but my mother would not let me wear it curly all the time. She said I should wear it straight usually, only wear it curly/natural “sometimes”. To wear a natural style all the time is not acceptable, even for many curly heads.


2. All the wrong rules still applied. Whatever jacked up hair rules that are inherent in the black community are often not simply thrown out the window for curly-heads. Many of us grew up not allowed to get our hair wet, using the same horrible grease and pink oil, blow-drying, etc on our hair. Of course, hair needs water, and no water leads to hella frizz and tangles, this is true of curly heads AND kinky heads. I walked around with a constant halo of frizz around my head before I went natural. I suck at swimming because getting my hair wet was a crime against humanity when I was a child. I know all about blue magic grease. These bad practices were instilled and hardwired into my head, and still messed my hair up and had to be unlearned. Some of these rules make absolutely no sense, and yet we still did them. It was very common for myself, and several other naturally curly headed women I know (only the black ones, mind you, not the curly headed white ones), to straighten our hair, then promptly proceed to curl it with hot curlers to get the exact same size and type of curls we would have had in the first place if we had just worn it natural. How jaded is that!? My little nephew is biracial, and has bone straight hair just like his dad. When my mom babysat him, she STILL could not get away from slathering a layer of straight GREASE on his hair. WHY, I DON’T KNOW. The baby’s hair was already laying down. ??? LOL!! It’s just a compulsive second nature “thing” for her, as many of those same wrong rules are or were, to many of us.

3. People are still often insulting, stupid, and ignorant. My mother, and then myself were often accused of not knowing what the heck we were doing with my hair. My mother was constantly being tutored, criticized, informed, and schooled as to what was “wrong” with the way she was doing our hair, and what she “should” be doing with it. Often it was assumed that somebody, somewhere, was not doing something “right” because my hair would never be straight enough, which getting it straight *should* have been simple because of my looser curls. Either my mom or whatever current stylist we had, and then me, we were all considered “wrong” and/or “clueless” by others, because my hair was never straight as it “could” be. Because “all we should need to do” for my hair was this, that, the other to get it straight. Stylists would usually first chide my mother when she brought me in, like my mom was some poor clueless crazy lady, but then they’d promptly move to being baffled as they would begin styling and then finish off in humble defeat due to my hair. Even though it is not tightly kinky. This was true of my sister’s hair as well. I often wished I had “normal” black hair because at least all the stylists seemed to be familiar with that. I watched people with more often seen kinky hair leave with the exact style they had come in to get. My sister and myself, I can’t really say we have ever left a stylist completely satisfied , or with anything resembling the style we wanted. That was even true of me when I tried to go to a natural stylist.

Then you have the other type of ignorance of the insulting or bullying nature. I got to high school and got a little better at doing my hair, and there were those at school who were hateful to me because of my hair texture. I was bullied at school by a particular group of girls due to my hair texture alone. I was accused of being a lying liar who lies a lot because I answered, “No, I’m not wearing a weave. No, I didn’t rod-set it.” This group often threatened to “rip” my “weave” out, to reveal my “lie”, I guess. They verbally bullied me nearly every day whenever I had to pass by them. Nothing much came of it physically, but my self esteem was fragile, and I can’t say I got through high school feeling awesome about my hair. I don’t think my situation is unique. My niece came to me all upset one day because the first day (FIRST DAY!) she got on the bus for her very first day of high school, somebody asked her what was “wrong” with her hair because it was “too” frizzy or something. I told her next time ask her what was wrong with her mouth. Don’t mess with my baby niece.

Then you have the backhanded compliments from people. Curly headed nappies tend to get a lot of those, disguised under the “good hair” remarks. Sometimes it’s about not being quite the right skin tone to have that type of hair, (a backhanded insult about your skin tone); other times you are patronized or assumed as not knowing what the heck you are talking about in regards to hair health or even black issues in general because “you got that ‘good’ stuff anyway, so you wouldn’t know about that”. One of the main reasons I’ve stopped talking to people, even to people who ask me, about going natural is because they assume I don’t know what I’m talking about because they think my hair is easy to manage. Even though we get what some considered being “compliments” there is often an element of ignorance and condescension behind these “compliments”, if they are not just straight up insults, which happen frequently as well.
I feel this needs to be highlighted: THE WAY WE ARE INSULTED MAY BE DIFFERENT FROM THE WAY THOSE WITH KINKIER TEXTURES ARE INSULTED, BUT THEY ARE ALL INSULTS JUST THE SAME! SHOCKINGLY we often had to deal with a lifetime of negative words and connotations surrounding our hair even though we have a looser texture. The constant bombardment of these same type of insults over and over from childhood up still have a similar type of deep impact on a young psyche growing up as those insults to those with kinkier textures endured.

4. When going natural we still catch crap from our families and friends. I can’t tell you how many times I am asked what I’m going to “do” with my hair, and “you can’t go out with it frizzy like that. Something needs to be “done” with it, it can’t be left as it grows out of the head. And Lord help the curly headed transitioning permy who happens to have long hair who decides to go for The Big Chop. And my mom swore out that I had just finally gone crazy. Her words, not mine. Said I had “lost my mind”. She literally WOULD NOT SPEAK TO ME whenever she saw me walking around with an afro. I was literally fussed out by several people who I barely even know, and who barely even know me. My own husband gave me a whole lake full of ish to wade through when I decided to start locs. And the comments from certain types about my locs, when I did finally grow them, were so thick with ignorance that all I could do is shake my head. I still needed to find comfort in people who understand. For a while after going natural, coming to nappturality was the only place I could go to find people who got it. As in, got the whole dynamics behind how important hair is to black families, etc. Other generic curly websites (that mainly cater to white curly heads) did not have the understanding of these dynamics and the support to offer that nappturality has.

5. When going natural, we still have that learning curve. (See #2.) We need help to know how type of hair we have, what products work, why water is ok, etc. Having curls do not make us automatically know how to style and treat our hair. One has to completely relearn what they know of hair. What coarseness really is. How porosity works. Density. And then, all about products. Learn YOUR hair and what works on it.


The last place any black woman, kinky or curly headed, should have to deal with unenlightened insulting and stupid remarks and criticism about relaying their experiences on our hair is nappturality. Our experiences are all unique. Some live in places where the kinkiest of natural hair is accepted, while others live in places where only the bone straightest of the bone straightest will do, kinky or curly be damned. To question the motives and sincerity of some one seeking comfort and understanding from insulting remarks simply because those insults are not something you’ve personally ever dealt with is incredibly closed minded.

Please consider your words before putting them out there to another member relaying their experiences which may have been different from yours. The Diaspora is so large, there are so many different ones of us, and we all have been through so much through the generations due to the unique culture that our difficult history has afforded us. I know not all may agree with my words, but this has been brewing inside of me and other curly headed members of nappturality for a long time. We are all sisters and brothers. If you read something that makes you tsk and twitch, stop and think where that twitch is coming from, before throwing a vitriol-filled, passive aggressive, or otherwise dismissive post up there. Ask yourself how YOU would feel if you were in a similar situation. Ask yourself, “If this person had very kinky hair, and some one said the exact same thing to her, would my response be the same?”

My purpose of this essay is to just maybe give some people a little more to think about, and also to perhaps open up respectful discussion.